Tuesday, September 23, 2008

There Is More Than One Kind Of Veto

BH) By contrast, minarchists had no equivalent veto power over the subsequent accretion of abolitionist Platform statements that conflicted with their own small-government principles. (BH

AP) I fail to see how this could possibly be true. Are you telling me that the 17/20ths of the party that are not anarchists could not muster a vote of 50% needed to remove planks not to their liking? (AP

No, I'm telling you that the balance of polemical power that determines Platform content is not measured by such simplistic fractions of NatCon delegates, let alone LP members. Or did you think that the "Dallas Accord" had zero influence/authority because it wasn't in the Bylaws?

AP) Is it not possible, in your mind, for someone to think that both the 2004 platform and the Pure Principles platform are good? (AP

Non-responsive. My point stands: a major species of criticism of Platform reform said in effect that "platforms don't matter, so shut up and let the radicals control the platform". That you didn't offer such criticism doesn't mean it didn't exist, or that it wasn't wrong.

AP) Is it not possible, in your mind, for someone to prefer Restore ‘04 because he/she believes it’s very important for the platform to state why Libertarians believe this or that, rather than simply and solely to state what it is that Libertarians believe, so that the proposals thus appear less extremist to the average American? (AP

No, I don't think it's possible for an intelligent Libertarian to think the Restore04 text would "appear less extremist to the average American" than the PlatCom draft did.

AP) Is it not possible, in your mind, for someone to prefer Restore ‘04 over the other proposals for purely pragmatic reasons? (AP

Lots of things are possible, but I'm not a mind-reader, and so I have to stick with the reasons that Restore04 supporters actually gave.

AP) Conservatives often say that neoconservatism is not a school of conservatism. Ought libertarians not say the same of neolibertarianism? (AP